Does urllib3 support HTTP/2 Requests? Will it?

Question:

I know the following about various python HTTP libraries:

The other major HTTP request library I’m aware of is urllib3. This is what OpenAPI Generator uses by default when generating python client libraries.

My Questions are:

Can urrlib3 be configured to make HTTP/2 requests?

I cannot find any information on http2 support in the documentation, and through my testing of a generated OpenAPI client, all requests are HTTP/1.1. If the answer is no currently, are the maintainers planning HTTP/2 support? I cannot find any evidence of this in the project’s open issues.

Asked By: kashev

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Answers:

I asked about this in the urllib3 discord, and got an answer from one of the maintainers that corroborates what Tim Roberts commented;

  • Proper HTTP/2 implementations require async/await to take advantage of the main different feature in HTTP/2, which is making requests in parallel.
  • urllib3 in particular is not planning to support this because it’ll in general require a rewrite.
Answered By: kashev

There is an alternative to the listed HTTP/2 clients: pycurl can perform HTTP/2 requests very efficiently if libcurl is compiled with HTTP/2 support (same apply to HTTP/3).
The drawback is it’s more complex to install.

Answered By: Le Hibou